The Imperial Study had become Ying Zheng's personal laboratory for reshaping the minds of his enemies. The intellectual siege laid by his three conservative tutors had backfired spectacularly. Instead of being cowed into submission by the endless recitation of the classics, he had turned their own philosophical weapons against them, forcing them into a reluctant and deeply uncomfortable debate on the practical merits of modernization.
On this particular morning, Head Tutor Wo Ren was grudgingly summarizing a report on British coal production that Shen Ke had provided. His voice was laced with a palpable distaste, as if the words themselves were a foul-tasting medicine.
"The report claims," he said, his long, thin beard seeming to quiver with indignation, "that a single mine in the barbarian land of Wales can extract more coal in a week than our entire Shanxi province produces in a month. They achieve this with the use of steam-powered pumps to remove water and iron carts on rails to move the coal. It is… an impressive feat of brute force, though lacking in spiritual harmony."
Ying Zheng listened patiently, his face a mask of studious concentration. He let the old tutor finish, then he masterfully pivoted the conversation, moving from the specific to the strategic.
"It is clear, then, as the sages have always taught," he said, his childish voice imbued with a strange, logical authority, "that a nation's strength is derived from its resources, both those within its borders and those it can control through trade. A wise emperor must therefore have a perfect understanding of his domain." He looked up at Wo Ren, his eyes wide and innocent. "Grand Tutor, I wish to understand our own maritime domain better. Let us put aside the barbarian reports for a day. Let us study the tributary states that pay homage to the Dragon Throne. This is a matter of proper Confucian order, is it not?"
The tutors were visibly relieved. This was familiar, comfortable territory. The tribute system was a cornerstone of the Sinocentric worldview, a beautiful, ordered hierarchy with the Son of Heaven at its apex and the lesser kingdoms arranged in concentric circles of deference. It was a topic that reaffirmed their cultural superiority, a welcome antidote to the unsettling realities of British coal production.
Shen Ke, anticipating the Emperor's line of inquiry, was summoned. He entered bearing a series of beautifully rendered maps and historical records, all pertaining to the Qing's vassal states.
"Let us begin," Ying Zheng commanded, pointing a small finger at the map. He immediately guided the lesson. "We need not discuss Annam or Vietnam. The French barbarians have their claws in it. It is a patient who is already sick." He gestured to another area. "And Korea… its politics are too complex, too close to the Russians and the Japanese. We will study it another day."
His finger then moved, tracing a path over the East China Sea, coming to rest on a small, scattered chain of islands to the southeast. They were so small on the grand map of the empire that they were almost an afterthought.
"This one," he said, his finger tapping the islands. "The Kingdom of Ryukyu. These records say they have sent us tribute faithfully for over five hundred years, since the time of the Ming. They are a loyal and ancient vassal. Tell me of their importance to the Great Qing."
Wo Ren stroked his beard, a look of dismissive pride on his face. "Your Majesty's interest is commendable, but the Ryukyu Kingdom is a matter of little consequence," he explained, his tone that of a teacher explaining a simple fact. "They are a minor kingdom of fishermen and farmers. Their tribute—mostly lacquerware and unusual textiles—is of ceremonial value only. They are strategically insignificant, a remote outpost of civilization, notable only for their unwavering loyalty to the Dragon Throne."
This was the traditional, and dangerously complacent, view of the Qing court. They saw the tribute system not as a network of strategic alliances, but as a ritual of cultural affirmation. Ryukyu was seen as a loyal but unimportant backwater, its value purely symbolic. Ying Zheng knew this was a catastrophic, history-altering miscalculation. He knew that even as they spoke, the rising sun of Japan was casting a long, dark shadow over that "insignificant" kingdom.
"Insignificant?" Ying Zheng mused, a look of childish puzzlement on his face. "That is curious." He turned to Shen Ke. "Scholar Shen, you brought the other documents I requested? The ones from the customs house in Fuzhou?"
Shen Ke stepped forward and unrolled another set of scrolls. These were not historical records. They were dry, practical shipping manifests and trade logs from the past three years. He had been tasked with compiling a report on all maritime traffic between the port of Fuzhou—the closest major Qing port to Ryukyu—and the wider world.
Ying Zheng leaned over the ledgers, pretending to struggle with the columns of figures. "It says here," he said, tracing a line with his finger, "that in the last year, only four Qing merchant junks sailed from Fuzhou to the Ryukyuan capital of Naha. But… this column is much longer. It lists… forty-seven voyages by Japanese steamships, from their port of Kagoshima to Naha."
He looked up at his tutors, his face a mask of perfect confusion. "This is very strange. If the kingdom is an insignificant producer of lacquerware, why are the Japanese so interested in it? It seems their merchants are far more active there than our own." He tapped the page again. "A loyal vassal should trade primarily with its master, should it not? It is a matter of propriety. Why are they trading so much with the Japanese dwarfs?"
The question, so simple and logical, hung in the air. The tutors had no answer. They thought in terms of tribute and ceremony, of history and philosophy. They did not think in terms of shipping tonnage and trade imbalances. They were scholars, not geostrategists.
Ying Zheng had just used the West's own tool—the cold, hard logic of economic data—to expose a massive flaw in their traditional, tribute-focused worldview. He had planted a seed of doubt, a question that their classical education could not answer. He had forced them to consider that Japan's ambitions in the East China Sea might not be merely commercial. He was subtly preparing their minds, and through them, the minds of the conservative faction, for a crisis they did not even see coming. The forgotten kingdom, he knew, was about to become the most important piece on the entire board.